How The Elite Stay In Power

We Are Change | Dec 30, 2014

In this video we break down in simple terms a very complex game that is happening behind the scenes that many do not notice. A complex game played by the very few against everyone else.

Activists occupy UK govt building over heavily-redacted fracking report

As part of a nationwide day of direct action, campaigners have
occupied a government building and blockaded both entrances
to an energy firm. (Image from flickr.com / Reclaim The Power)

RT | Aug 18, 2014

A group of campaigners from Reclaim the Power are currently occupying the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ (DEFRA) headquarters in London, following the government’s decision to censor a report on the potential impacts of fracking.

Three anti-fracking and climate justice activists superglued themselves to DEFRA’s main doors at approximately 8 am this morning, using reinforced arm tubes to prevent access. Another scaled the building and unfurled a large banner inscribed with the message: “What’s to hide DEFRA? – Don’t frack with our future.”

The activists wore black tape pasted across their mouths in an effort to convey the scale of censorship the government had recently employed prior to publishing its report.

'Shale Gas: Rural Economy Impacts,' which details the potential impacts of fracking on rural communities throughout Britain, was released following a Freedom of Information (FOI) request tendered to DEFRA.

The document was published with extensive sections of the text missing – a total of 63 separate redactions. Redacted portions of the study spanned its executive summary, a section on “Hydrocarbon reserves,” another on “Investment and job creation,” a third documenting areas “likely to be affected by shale gas licensing,” a segment relating to fracking’s economic impacts on rural communities, and large segments on the “social impacts” of shale gas drilling on rural locales. A mere three paragraphs remained in the report’s conclusion.

Read more..

Supporters gather to defend Bundy ranch in Nevada from feds

Screenshot from youtube video by user GMN Telemedia

RT | Apr 11, 2014 |

An intense showdown in the state of Nevada between a family of ranchers and federal agents continues to escalate after a longstanding land dispute two decades in the making came to a head earlier this month.

As RT reported earlier this week, hundreds of armed agents with the United States Bureau of Land Management and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have descended on the Clark County, Nevada ranch of 67-year-old Cliven Bundy to execute the court-ordered confiscation of nearly 1,000 cattle, according to his family, which the US government says have trespassed on federal property.

The Washington Free Beacon newspaper reported on Monday this week that 234 of the 908 cattle had been wrangled up by government agents and their contractors, and news of the dispute has since further propelled the story into the national spotlight.

Now it’s been reported that local cowboys have retrieved some of the confiscated cattle, and supporters of the Bundy ranch from around the region have flocked to Nevada to stand by their side.

Since the Beacon first reported on the standoff earlier the week, tensions have only worsened in Clark County. Video emerged online on Wednesday of the rancher’s son, Ammon Bundy, bloodied after being shocked by an electric Taser used by authorities, and Desert News reported that, according to Cliven Bundy, his own sister was knocked to the ground by officials moments before cameras began to roll.

One witness, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, told reporters that “Serious bloodshed was narrowly avoided” as a pregnant woman was also roughed up during the ordeal.

"We never did have any hand-to-hand combat this morning or up to his time," Mr. Bundy told the newspaper on Thursday afternoon. "But there's like 200 armed military people on my ranch. That's pretty bad to have that much armed force against American people."

Signs sit at the entrance of a ranch protesting against the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM)
decision to temporarily close access to thousands of acres of BLM land to round up
illegal cattle that are grazing, south of Mesquite, Nevada, April 7, 2014. (Reuters / George Frey)

Countering those personnel are supporters of the Bundy ranch who say the family must be protected from a tyrannical government.

“We need to be the barrier between the oppressed and the tyrants,” Ryan Payne told the Review-Journal. “Expect to see a band of soldiers.”

Payne and other supporters drove from as far away as 12 hours outside of Clark County to come stand by the ranchers’ side, the paper reported, and have received the blessing of well-organized militias from within the region. Payne, a member of the West Mountain Rangers, is also the coordinator of what he described to the paper as being a national association composed of state militias.


Several US senators and the state of Nevada this week also criticized what has been called the result of an “overreaching” agency acting overzealously, but federal officials say the rancher’s cattle are simply not allowed to roam on the disputed land, which the government insists is federal property. According to the BLM, Bundy owes around $1 million in fees that he’s incurred since 1993 when he lost his grazing permit for the chunk of land that had been in his family since the 1870s.

"I would pay my grazing fees to the proper government, which I would say is Clark County, Nevada," he added to the Deseret News on Thursday.

"I don't believe I owe one penny to the United States government," Bundy said. "I don't have a contract with the United States government."

That same day, Bundy’s son Ammon told reporter David Knight that a group of around 20 cowboys had entered the disputed land and quickly retrieved roughly 30 cattle before the federal official could respond.

“We gathered about 30 head,” he said. “We did have a small confrontation with them, but they didn’t have the forces to do a whole lot. They couldn’t mobilize fast enough and we were able to gather those cattle and get them to the ranch.”

Amy Leuders, the director of the BLM's Nevada office, told reporters on Thursday that authorities have been moving in only as a “last resort” resulting from 20 years of Bundy’s noncompliance with regards to paying grazing fees.

According to Leuders, cattle caught trespassing on the federal land will be sold at auction.

The Vampire Squid Strikes Again: The Mega Banks' Most Devious Scam Yet

The Vampire Squid Strikes Again: The Mega Banks' Most Devious Scam Yet
Feb 12, 2014 | Rolling Stone | Matt Taibbi

Call it the loophole that destroyed the world. It's 1999, the tail end of the Clinton years. While the rest of America obsesses over Monica Lewinsky, Columbine and Mark McGwire's biceps, Congress is feverishly crafting what could yet prove to be one of the most transformative laws in the history of our economy – a law that would make possible a broader concentration of financial and industrial power than we've seen in more than a century.

But the crazy thing is, nobody at the time quite knew it. Most observers on the Hill thought the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 – also known as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act – was just the latest and boldest in a long line of deregulatory handouts to Wall Street that had begun in the Reagan years.

Wall Street had spent much of that era arguing that America's banks needed to become bigger and badder, in order to compete globally with the German and Japanese-style financial giants, which were supposedly about to swallow up all the world's banking business. So through legislative lackeys like red-faced Republican deregulatory enthusiast Phil Gramm, bank lobbyists were pushing a new law designed to wipe out 60-plus years of bedrock financial regulation. The key was repealing – or "modifying," as bill proponents put it – the famed Glass-Steagall Act separating bankers and brokers, which had been passed in 1933 to prevent conflicts of interest within the finance sector that had led to the Great Depression. Now, commercial banks would be allowed to merge with investment banks and insurance companies, creating financial megafirms potentially far more powerful than had ever existed in America.

All of this was big enough news in itself. But it would take half a generation – till now, basically – to understand the most explosive part of the bill, which additionally legalized new forms of monopoly, allowing banks to merge with heavy industry. A tiny provision in the bill also permitted commercial banks to delve into any activity that is "complementary to a financial activity and does not pose a substantial risk to the safety or soundness of depository institutions or the financial system generally."

Complementary to a financial activity. What the hell did that mean?

"From the perspective of the banks," says Saule Omarova, a law professor at the University of North Carolina, "pretty much everything is considered complementary to a financial activity."

Fifteen years later, in fact, it now looks like Wall Street and its lawyers took the term to be a synonym for ruthless campaigns of world domination. "Nobody knew the reach it would have into the real economy," says Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown. Now a leading voice on the Hill against the hidden provisions, Brown actually voted for Gramm-Leach-Bliley as a congressman, along with all but 72 other House members. "I bet even some of the people who were the bill's advocates had no idea."

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-vampire-squid-strikes-again-the-mega-banks-most-devious-scam-yet-20140212?utm_source=dailynewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter#ixzz2tGPpFDsG
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

Federal Corporate Collusion: Denying Citizens Right to Know Dangers of Wireless Technology

© Stop Smart Meters

Federal Corporate Collusion: Denying Citizens Right to Know Dangers of Wireless Technology
Jan 10, 2014 | Stop Smart Meters

Tom Wheeler, chair of the Federal Communications Commission, and former head of the industry Wireless Association for 12 years, got an earful from protesters on Thursday during his visit to the Bay Area.   Organized by Stop Smart Meters! and the California Brain Tumor Association,  protesters gathered and expressed their anger at the industry/ government collusion that is failing to warn people about- or even acknowledge- the hazards of wireless technology.

From the morning as he arrived in Mountain View to the end of the Oakland event that evening, Wheeler was peppered with questions and dealt with disruptions about how he buried the science showing a connection between cancer and cell phone use.

As Wheeler stepped out of his limo in Mountain View, he was confronted by protesters citing the ill-advised plan to place wireless in all classrooms in the US- a plan called “ConnectEd” being spearheaded by Wheeler and Obama.  A teacher from the LA Unified School District who has witnessed firsthand the effects of wireless on schoolchildren repeatedly pressed Wheeler on the point that this radiation is already causing harm to our kids- and that wired computers (not a wireless Class 2B carcinogen) are safer, more secure, and can adequately prepare children for a future working with technology.

Continue reading..

Agenda 21 “Plan Bay Area” & “Wildlife Corridors” Explained

© Steve Kemp Channel

Cross-posted from FindResolution.info under Austerity as Neuro-linguistic Programming

Agenda 21 “Plan Bay Area” & “Wildlife Corridors” Explained
Nov 21, 2013 | Farm Wars | Heather Gass

Editor's note: Heather Gass outlines how our UN and aristocracy have taken words such as "sustainability," and are using this deceptive language to hide both austerity and the manner of bailouts that are actually in process. This attributes the movement of wealth from that of the people, into the hands of those who have no conscience or humanitarian values. This is a form of psychological warfare and awareness is beyond critical, as partnerships are already being employed world wide with the monolithic powerful.



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Matt Damon on the need for Disobedience to the State

Matt Damon on the need for Disobedience to the State
Nov 22, 2013 | Sott.net | Matt Damon

Matt Damon speaks for just 5 minutes, but packs in a lot of truth, truth that so many people around the world, and especially in the 'Western world' need to hear NOW.

Occupy Madison builds 'tiny home' for homeless

Occupy Madison builds 'tiny home' for homeless
Nov 18, 2013 | RT America

A group in Madison, Wisc. is taking an innovative approach to helping the homeless. Occupy Madison, an offshoot of the Occupy Movement, has built its first "tiny home" as part of their initiative called, "OM Build." They hope the house will become part of a cooperative village of eco-friendly homes. The tiny home is less than 100 square feet, and is built largely with recycled materials. RT's Sam Sacks talks with Occupy Madison organizer Luca Clemente about how OMB Build helps the homeless in more ways than just providing them shelter.

Inside the Zeitgeist Revolution | Exclusive Interview with Peter Joseph

Inside the Zeitgeist Revolution | Exclusive Interview with Peter Joseph
Nov 15, 2013 | breakingtheset

Abby Martin speaks with Peter Joseph, founder to the Zeitgeist Movement about the philosophy behind the organization, the unsustainability of the current economic system and the model proposed by the movement for a sustainable future that works harmoniously with nature.

Noam Chomsky warns Canada’s shale gas energy plans will have dire consequences

© Raw Story

Noam Chomsky warns Canada’s shale gas energy plans will have dire consequences
Nov 1, 2013 | By Martin Lukacs, The Guardian

Canada’s rush to exploit its tar sands and shale gas resources will destroy the environment “as fast as possible”, according to Noam Chomsky.

In an interview with the Guardian, the linguist and author criticised the energy policies of the Canadian government under Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

He said: “It means taking every drop of hydrocarbon out of the ground, whether it’s shale gas in New Brunswick or tar sands in Alberta and trying to destroy the environment as fast as possible, with barely a question raised about what the world will look like as a result.”

But indigenous peoples in Canada blocking fossil fuel developments are taking the lead in combatting climate change, he said. Chomsky highlighted indigenous opposition to the Alberta tar sands, the oil deposit that is Canada’s fastest growing source of carbon emissions and is slated for massive expansion despite attracting international criticism and protest.

“It is pretty ironic that the so-called ‘least advanced’ people are the ones taking the lead in trying to protect all of us, while the richest and most powerful among us are the ones who are trying to drive the society to destruction,” said Chomsky.

Chomsky expressed concern about an indigenous community in New Brunswick whose encampment blockading shale gas exploration was raided by a heavily armed Canadian police force two weeks ago.

Those protests come on the heels of the indigenous-led Idle No More movement that sprang up in late 2012 in response to the Harper government’s repeal of numerous environmental protections and aggressive promotion of resource projects, often on indigenous lands.

Chomsky was in Montreal last weekend to give a lecture and celebrate the 50th anniversary of the magazine Canadian Dimension.

He told the Guardian that progressives “should work climate change into their efforts to organise”, but in a way that emphasises how addressing climate change can improve rather than worsen peoples’ lives.

“If it’s a prophecy of doom, it will act as a dampener, and people’s reaction will be ok, I’ll enjoy myself for a couple of years while there’s still a chance. But as a call to action, it can be energising. Like, do you want your children, and grandchildren, to have a decent life?”

While supporting the principles of the “degrowth” movement that aims to reign in over-production and over-consumption, Chomsky cited mass transportation, localised agriculture, and energy efficiency improvements as useful forms of growth that could mitigate climate change and improve quality of living.

“If you could take a subway from the suburbs in Boston, where I live, to downtown in 10 minutes, that improves your life over sitting in a traffic jam. People should see that.”

Chomsky said that a “major issue” behind climate change is the deficiencies of the market system.
“Markets are lethal, if only because of ignoring externalities, the impacts of their transactions on the environment,” he said.

“When you turn to energy production, in market exchanges each participant is asking what can I gain from it? You don’t ask what are the costs to others. In this case the cost to others is the destruction of the environment. So the externalities are not trivial.”

Chomsky said during the 2008 financial crisis, the big banks could “forget the fact that they’re supposed to believe in markets, run cap in hand to the government and say bail us out”.

“In the case of the environment there’s no one to bail it out.”

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media 2013

Time to Jail the Banksters...

© The Big Picture RT

Time to Jail the Banksters...
Oct 30, 2013 | The Big Picture RT

Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone Magazine, joins Thom Hartmann. It didn't take Wall Street's allies in the financial media long to start whining about JPMorgan's $13 billion settlement with the federal government.

But is that record fine really as bad as the people on CNBC say it is?

Frackdown Day: Worldwide protest to end shale gas extraction [Video]

© RT

Frackdown Day: Worldwide protest to end shale gas extraction [Video]
Oct 19, 2013 | RT

Global Frackdown Day is on - Saturday marks a worldwide protest, uniting all activists who want to put an end to shale gas extraction. 'Fracktivists', as they're called, are urging their governments to stand up to the oil and gas lobby. However, in Britain the authorities see things very differently... Prime Minister has become a vigorous advocate of the risky technique, as Laura Smith reports. So why exactly are environmentalists so concerned about this particular form of oil and gas extraction? For more on this RT is joined by Vanessa Vine - she's an anti-fracking campaigner for Britain and Ireland Frack Free group

BREAKING: Aerial blockade stops construction of Enbridge Line 6B tar sands pipeline

BREAKING: Aerial blockade stops construction of Enbridge Line 6B tar sands pipeline
Aug 7, 2013 | Global Justice Ecology Project

This morning, Michigan Coalition Against Tar Sands (MI-CATS) is taking direct action in the Crane Pond State Game Area to halt expansion of Canadian corporation Enbridge Energy’s tar sands pipeline 6B. Enbridge’s claim that they have restored the Kalamazoo River after the 2010 spill holds no merit, nor does it justify expanding the pipeline. Tar sands cannot be cleaned up; this material is thick and heavy, it sinks in water, and clings to surfaces. Expanding the pipeline increases the risk of another disaster for all of life and future generations.

Felix of the unconfined Kalamazoo River basin climbed into the trees early this morning to halt the expansion of Enbridge’s tar sands pipeline 6B. A rope traverse, spanning a portion of where construction is taking place, is the sole line that holds the platform they are sitting on up in the air. If it were cut and/or tampered with by police or workers they could fall from the tree, resulting in serious injury, possibly even death.

“Tar sands pipeline 6B is pumping a dangerous concoction which fuels global capitalism. This pipeline is Canada’s promise that industrialized capitalism will continue to exploit and oppress the people of the world and the environment. Capitalism guarantees the continued destruction of the natural world. It enables the ruling class to exploit the world’s resources and force the rest of the population to labor for the ruling classes profits. Additionally, we are way beyond the verge of climate crisis. It is of utmost importance that carbon emissions stop immediately. Tar sands infrastructure is one example of industries at the root of the oil addiction. By taking action at the root of the problem, we endeavor to stop the symptoms of the problem. If we halt all carbon emissions into the atmosphere and remember how to live in harmony with the earth, there might be hope for life as we humans have known it for a few hundred thousand years.”

MI CATS asserts that direct action tactics, including civil disobedience, are now necessary as Enbridge’s dominant presence in our bio-region has allowed no room for any constructive alternatives. After three long years of blatant lies and omissions, Enbridge has the audacity to triple the capacity of the same pipeline that poured an ecologically abrasive sludge into the Kalamazoo River. This catastrophe was the largest inland oil spill this continent has ever experienced. While the Kalamazoo spill was the largest, it is one of many devastations brought on by Enbridge. Enbridge’s insidious business practices caused more than 800 pipeline spills between 1999 and 2010; that is more than one tar sands spill a week.

All pipelines leak. All markets peak. Capitalism can rot in hell. Enbridge places profit before our families, the ecosystem, our grandmothers, our dogs (yo what up Smokey*?), our grandchildren and the future of life on this planet. The continuation of tar sands transportation through pipelines like Line 6B risk more than just our own backyards; everything in the industry’s wake is left defiled and in squalor. Our actions against Enbridge won’t stop until Enbridge stops participating in the resource extraction industry. We stand in solidarity with all first peoples’ whose lands were forcibly taken from them, Idle No More, Fearless Summer, those working to end corporate personhood, all the species going extinct, those sick and dying thanks to the extraction industry, and all folks fighting oppression in order to live full and happy lives.

*Smokey was a dog who died as a result of the 2010 spill.

Source: Michigan Coalition Against Tar Sands

Let’s Eat Our Landscaping: Video

Corn Growing in Front of the Todmorden Police Station

Let’s Eat Our Landscaping: Video
July 25, 2013 | Gaia Health Blog

Pam Warhurst tells how she and her community decided to start a revolution by growing food in public spaces. They didn’t consult. They didn’t write reports. They didn’t ask for permission. They just did it. 

In just a short time, their town became a lush garden, full of food-growing plants. Almost everyone can be involved, and after awhile, almost everyone wants to be involved. That’s the power of people doing something for themselves. Nothing can stop us!


Pam Warhurst is thoroughly entertaining as she explains how they did it—and how you can, too! [13:22]

Grand Theft: Giant Banks Take Over Real Economy As Well As Financial System … Enabling Manipulation On a Vast Scale

image source

Grand Theft: Giant Banks Take Over Real Economy As Well As Financial System … Enabling Manipulation On a Vast Scale
July 10, 2013 | Washington's Blog

Big Banks Move Into Uranium Mining, Petroleum Products, Aluminum, Ownership and Operation Of Airports, Toll Roads, and Ports, and Electricity

Top economists, financial experts and bankers say that the big banks are too large … and their very size is threatening the economy.

They say we need to break up the big banks to stabilize the economy.

They say that too much interconnectedness leads to financial instability.

They also say that the big financial players are able to manipulate virtually every market in the world.
And that the government has given the banks huge subsidies … which they are using for speculation and other things which don’t help the economy.

But the big banks have only gotten bigger – and more interconnected – than before the phony financial “reform” legislation was passed a couple of years ago.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, four congressmen point out that the big banks are not taking over the tangible economy as well … which allows them to control and manipulate the markets.

Specifically, Congressman Grayson wrote – and Congressmen Conyers, Ellison and Grijalva co-signed – a letter to the Federal Reserve which, in the words of a congressional aide:

Ask[ed] why large banks are engaged in a host of commercial activities, including power production, management of ports, oil drilling and distribution, and uranium mining. These activities have nothing to do with the business of banking and it’s unclear how the Fed or other bank regulators can actually regulate them. There’s useful and somewhat crazy information in the 10Ks of the banks about what they are currently doing. You can find that in the footnotes of the letter.

Here is their letter:

June 27, 2013

The Honorable Ben Bernanke

Chairman

Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System

20th Street and Constitution Avenue N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20551

Dear Chairman Bernanke,

We write in regards to the expansion of large banks into what had traditionally been non-financial commercial spheres. Specifically, we are concerned about how large banks have recently expanded their businesses into such fields as electric power production, oil refining and distribution, owning and operating of public assets such as ports and airports, and even uranium mining. [Isn't that a national security issue?]

Here are a few examples. Morgan Stanley imported 4 million barrels of oil and petroleum products into the United States in June, 2012.[i] Goldman Sachs stores aluminum in vast warehouses in Detroit as well as serving as a commodities derivatives dealer.[ii] This “bank” is also expanding into the ownership and operation of airports, toll roads, and ports.[iii] JP Morgan markets electricity in California.

In other words, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and Morgan Stanley are no longer just banks – they have effectively become oil companies, port and airport operators, commodities dealers, and electric utilities as well. This is causing unforeseen problems for the industrial sector of the economy. For example, Coca Cola has filed a complaint with the London Metal Exchange that Goldman Sachs was hoarding aluminum. JP Morgan is currently being probed by regulators for manipulating power prices in California, where the “bank” was marketing electricity from power plants it controlled. We don’t know what other price manipulation could be occurring due to potential informational advantages accruing to derivatives dealers who also market and sell commodities. The long shadow of Enron could loom in these activities.

According to legal scholar Saule Omarova, over the past five years, there has been a “quiet transformation of U.S. financial holding companies.” These financial services companies have become global merchants that seek to extract rent from any commercial or financial business activity within their reach.[iv]  They have used legal authority in Graham-Leach-Bliley to subvert the “foundational principle of separation of banking from commerce”. This shift has many consequences for our economy, and for bank regulators. We wonder how the Federal Reserve is responding to this shift.

It seems like there is a significant macro-economic risk in having a massive entity like, say JP Morgan, both issuing credit cards and mortgages, managing municipal bond offerings, selling gasoline and electric power, running large oil tankers, trading derivatives, and owning and operating airports, in multiple countries. Such a dramatic intertwining of the industrial economy and supply chain with the financial system creates systemic risk, since there is effectively no regulatory entity that can oversee what is happening within these sprawling global entities.

Our questions are as follows:

1)      What is the Federal Reserve’s current position with respect to allowing Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to continue trading in physical commodities and holding commodity-related assets after the expiration of the statutory grace period during which they, as newly registered bank holding companies, must conform all of their activities to the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956? What is the legal justification for this position?

2)      Has the Federal Reserve been investigating the full range of risks, costs, and benefits – to the national economy and broader society – of allowing these institutions (and, possibly, other large financial holding companies) to engage in trade intermediation and commercial activities that go far beyond pure financial services?  If so, please share the results of your investigation. If not, why not?

3)      What types of data do you collect about the regulated financial holding companies’ non-financial activities? How does the Federal Reserve interact with non-bank regulators who are in charge of overseeing the areas and markets in which banking institutions conduct their non-financial activities?

4)      How do your examiners review, monitor, and evaluate banking organizations’ management of potential conflicts of interest between their physical commodity businesses and their derivatives trading?

5)      If such an entity were to become insolvent, what complications are likely to arise in resolving a company with such a range of activities? Please share your analysis on the implications of resolution authority on the commercial activities of systemically important financial institutions. Please describe how these banks approach this issue in their resolution plans (or “living wills”).

6)      When your examiners work within these large institutions, what framework do they use to, say, consider the possibility that a bank run could ensue from a massive public oil spill by a Goldman Sachs-owned oil tanker or a nuclear accident at a plant owned by a bank?

7)      Does this relatively new corporate structure contribute to the likelihood of industrial supply shocks?
Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

Alan Grayson

Raul Grijalva

John Conyers

Keith Ellison

---

---

[i] http://www.morganstanley.com/about/ir/shareholder/10k2012/10k2012.pdf

Morgan Stanley, according to its investment documents, is engaged “in the production, storage, transportation, marketing and trading of several commodities, including metals (base a  nd precious), agricultural products, crude oil, oil products, natural gas, electric power, emission credits, coal, freight, liquefied natural gas and related products and indices. In addition, we are an electricity power marketer in the U.S. and own electricity generating facilities in the U.S. and Europe; we own TransMontaigne Inc. and its subsidiaries, a group of companies operating in the refined petroleum products marketing and distribution business; and we own a minority interest in Heidmar Holdings LLC, which owns a group of companies that provide international marine transportation and U.S. marine logistics services.”

[ii] http://www.goldmansachs.com/investor-relations/financials/current/10k/2012-10-K.pdf

Goldman Sachs, according to its own recent investment reports, is engaged in “the production, storage, transportation, marketing and trading of numerous commodities, including crude oil, oil products, natural gas, electric power, agricultural products, metals (base and precious), minerals (including uranium), emission credits, coal, freight, liquefied natural gas and related products and indices.”

[iii] ibid

[iv] “The Merchants of Wall Street: Banking, Commerce, and Commodities” Omarova, Saule, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2180647&download=yes

EPA refuses to finalize study blaming fracking for water pollution

Denise Truong, 21, (L) and Elizabeth Lerer, 51,
protest against fracking in California, in
Los Angeles May 30, 2013. (Reuters)

EPA refuses to finalize study blaming fracking for water pollution
June 21, 2013 | RT

The US Environmental Protection Agency has dropped its plans to further investigate whether or not fracking led to the contamination of a Wyoming aquifer, and the agency no longer plans to write a report on the matter.

The EPA in 2011 released a draft report, which revealed that hydraulic fracturing fluids used at a shale gas drilling site had likely contaminated groundwater in Pavillion, Wyoming. Oil and gas companies have long argued that fracking poses no water contamination risks, but the EPA’s results demonstrated otherwise.

Critics of the findings, including Wyoming state officials and drilling advocates, argued that the EPA conducted a poor and inaccurate study, which could ultimately harm the industry. Despite the initial wave of criticism in 2011, EPA officials planned to resume the study and continue making assessments regarding the influence of fracking on groundwater. But the EPA on Thursday abandoned those plans, announcing that state officials will instead take over the investigation into Pavillion’s water pollution and draw up a conclusion in 2014.

"We think this is the most pragmatic, quickest way to help the residents of Pavillion. We're going to work hand in hand with the state to make sure this investigation moves forward," EPA spokesman Tom Reynolds announced in Washington, D.C.

Wyoming will receive a $1.5 million grant from Encana Corp.’s US oil and gas subsidiary, which owns the Pavillion gas field in question. The state plans to issue a final report about its findings in late 2014. Industry officials and drilling proponents have praised the decision to hand over responsibility of the study to Wyoming state officials.

"EPA has to do a better job, because another fatally flawed water study could have a big impact on how the nation develops its massive energy resources," Erik Milito, from the Washington, D.C.-based American Petroleum Institute, said in a news release.

“The EPA has been on a witch hunt to shut down hydraulic fracturing,” Sen. David Vitter, the top Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works committee, told Reuters.

Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead said in a news release that letting state officials run the investigation is “in everyone’s best interest”, since it would lead to “an unbiased, scientifically supportable conclusion.”

But Mead, a known advocate of drilling, has made no attempt to hide his own biases. Last September, Mead asked the Interior Department to abandon fracking rules, claiming that it was unnecessary to request companies to disclose the chemicals they inject down well bores. He has long opposed having any federal fracking rules, and urges lawmakers to let states make their own decisions.

And the Native Americans who live around the fracking site may not even take part in the study, despite the fact that contaminated groundwater has the greatest impact on their tribe. The Northern Arapaho Tribe, which lives on a reservation surrounding Pavillion, has long sought to maintain a role in the investigation. But a tribal official told AP that the EPA has stopped consulting with the community.

"They have a legal duty to consult with the tribe and that didn't happen as part of their dialogue with the governor," Ronald Oldman, co-chairman of the tribe's business council, said in a statement.

It is unclear why the EPA abandoned the study, but with state officials – many of which are fracking proponents – leading the investigation, the results could look very different from the 2011 draft report that linked fracking chemicals to groundwater contamination.

Monsanto Video Revolt: Global anti-GMO online rally launches

Monsanto Video Revolt: Global anti-GMO online rally launches
June 15, 2013 | RussiaToday

Organiser Anthony Gucciardi tells RT's The Truthseeker about the Monsanto Video Revolt to bypass the corporate media blackout and bring the issue to world attention - READ MORE http://on.rt.com/t9j2no

Naomi Klein: 'Anti-Shock Doctrines' Show the Way to Resist

Naomi Klein (Photo: Jonathan Dy/cc/flickr)

Naomi Klein: 'Anti-Shock Doctrines' Show the Way to Resist
June 7, 2013 | Common Dreams | Andrea Germanos

While media portray alternatives to austerity as "apocalypse," we must say no, but also "show the yes," said Klein 

In the midst of the current "final colonial pillage" for natural resources and a bombardment of "there is no alternative" to austerity messages, Shock Doctrine author Naomi Klein urged the left to seize this "crucial moment" to build real resistance movements that offer a "message of critical hope."

Speaking this week at the Vio.Me worker-run factory in Thessaloniki, Greece, Klein, who is in the country doing research for a book and film, said the building materials factory was the perfect place to be speaking as it is "known in resistance movements around the world" and provides an example of what she said is "the anti-Shock doctrine"—a situation where rather than bowing down to the forces at hand, the crisis has put a fast-forward on coming up with creative alternatives, where workers "refused to have their lives and livelihoods sacrificed on the altar of economic crisis, and instead found reserves of power and ingenuity."
Describing Vio.Me, economist Marjolein van der Veen explained:

In May 2011 when the owners could no longer pay their bills and walked away, the workers decided to occupy the factory. By February 2013, after raising enough funds and community support, the workers started democratically running the company on their own. (They do not intend to buy out the owners, since the company owed the workers a significant amount of money when it abandoned the factory.) They established a worker board, controlled by workers’ general assemblies and subject to recall, to manage the factory. They also changed the business model, shifting to different suppliers, improving environmental practices, and finding new markets. Greek law currently does not allow factory occupations, so the workers are seeking the creation of a legal framework for the recuperated factory, which may enable more such efforts in the future. Vio.Me has received support from SYRIZA and the Greek Green party, from workers at recuperated factories in Argentina, as well as from academics and political activists worldwide.

In Greece, Klein said, "alternatives to austerity are presented by media as apocalypse."

But the Vio.Me factory is an example of an alternative "that must be known, must be disseminated .. because many factories are now being closed as the crisis unfolds, and workers are not being given the opportunity to reshape the ownership, when in fact the workers should be the first ones asked if they want to be the creditors and run the factories themselves."

Klein slammed the Greek media for "not doing its job" in letting the people know an such alternatives do exist, instead repeating the mantra: there is no alternative (TINA), showing that "Margaret Thatcher is alive and well and living in Greece and working for the mainstream media."

In addition to the toll austerity has taken on people and communities, nature is on the chopping block as well. "It's not only people who are being attacked," said Klein, "it's also the natural systems on which we all depend."

The Skouries forest in Halkidiki preparing for
"growth." (Photo: Iosifsk Team/cc/flickr)

"Our environment is under vicious attack," she said.

Case in point: Canadian company ElDorado Gold's mining plans in the Halkidiki region of Greece.
Such projects are portrayed as necessary during crises; nature must take a back seat to "growth," Klein explained, so that nature and natural resources can be sold to the highest bidder.

"We really are in the midst of what I've come to think of as a final colonial pillage for the hardest to reach natural resources in some of the most beautiful protected parts of the world using some of the most dangerous and damaging extractive practices."

It is in this context that projects like the Eldorado mine should be seen, one that allows economic growth to trump entire communities' needs.

This is the same logic that sacrifices human lives in the name of austerity, she continued.

Sharing observations from time she just spent in Halkidiki, an area she said was so militarized and filled with checkpoints it reminded her of Gaza, Klein noticed the juxtaposition of two models—one of taker, the other of caretaker.

In the "extractivist point of view," it takes an outside force to create "wealth"—wealth from extracting natural resources even at the expense of water and other essential resources, essentially "mining for money."

This kind of system is so violent, Klein said, "it needs the repression of the state to back it up." In contrast, the other model in Halkidiki looks inward, at wealth that is not created, but is already there—in soil, water, even people's hands. This is truly "the wealth of life," she said.

To confront this assault is to confront not just the mine but the mindset that there is no alternative.

What we need, Klein said, is an "interweaving of resistance" movements—seen in moments like when the farmers from Halkidiki sell at the market in Thessaloniki—building a bridge between those in the city and those more rooted in the land.

Importantly, resistance "now can't just be about saying no, no to austerity, no to privatization." Those who have accepted it have been "terrorized" into doing so by fear, and it has made people feel "utterly powerless."
Now "is a crucial moment for the left."

What we must offer, she said, is a "message of critical hope". We must say no, but also "show the yes."

We must counter the "hypnosis" performed by the TINA pushers "with an array" of other options for people.

"Only when the alternatives look tangible, look real, look credible and inspiring will the fear of saying no, of standing up to the troika begin to fade." Moving forward, we must reach for real transformation, and not let the crises be decided for us.

We need to have our ideas ready to move forward in a new way, she said.

It's time to build.

* * *

Videos of Klein speaking in Thessaloniki were posted by Youtube user teacherdude and can be seen below:

'Pushed to the Edge,' Seattle's Low Wage Workers Join Sweeping Movement

Workers outside Arby's on S Michigan
chanting Fired Up! (Photo: @Molly_O/ Twitter)

'Pushed to the Edge,' Seattle's Low Wage Workers Join Sweeping Movement
May 31, 2013 | Common Dreams | Lauren McCauley

Striking worker: "We have been pushed to the edge, and now we are taking a stand, and I could not be more excited, or more hopeful."

In the seventh action in just eight weeks across the United States, fast food workers in Seattle are walking off the job Thursday joining a sweeping movement of low-wage workers who have been "pushed to the edge and are now taking a stand."

Repeating the calls made by striking workers in other cities, the Seattle workers are demanding a living wage of $15 per hour and the right to form a union without intimidation.

"The fast food strike wave represents organized labor’s most dramatic challenge to the massive, fast-growing and virtually union-free industry," writes the Nation's Josh Eidelson, adding that the fast food industry's notoriously low-wages and tenuous employment are "increasingly representative of the larger economy."
According to the Good Jobs Seattle campaign, the strike began at 10:30 PM PST Wednesday and by midday Thursday workers from dozens of fast food chains had joined the protest, with forced shutdowns at three stores: a Taco Bell and a Burger King on 15th Avenue, and a Subway on Broadway.

Following a series of morning rallies, strikers plan to converge at 4:30 PM local time for a march from Seattle's Denny Park to a number of fast food locations.

"My employer has pushed and pushed my coworkers and me and gotten everything they can out of us. This week, we joined together and pushed back," writes Caroline Durocher, one of the first to walk off her job at a local Taco Bell on Wednesday night, in an op-ed about why she was joining the action.
She continues:

We work in one of the fastest growing industries in the nation, and our companies are making huge – even record – profits, but we don't see enough of that money. We barely earn enough to pay for basics like rent, food and transportation to and from work.

[...]

That's not the life I envisioned for myself three years ago, when I was working full time, while studying for an associate of arts degree. I was planning to continue my education and become a psychologist. That was the plan, and that's still the plan. But my school costs became too much of a burden, and I had to leave, just a few credits shy of my degree.

And now I feel stuck in this trap – the trap of low-wage work. I work the night shift at Taco Bell in Ballard – running the register for the drive-through, ringing up one customer while taking the order of another. It's fast-paced, hard work, but at the minimum wage of $9.19 per hour and only 27 hours per week, I don't earn enough to make ends meet.

When I ask for more hours, my boss always says the same thing: hours are competitive – the harder you work, the more hours you'll get. But I work hard, and I haven't gotten any more hours.

I am stuck in a tough spot. I can't get enough hours to get health insurance, but I only qualify for $16 a month in food stamps, which I finally decided wasn't even worth the transportation costs to continue to get them. I can't get a better-paying job, especially without a degree, but I can't afford to go back to school.

[...]

So what do I have to lose? For me and my colleagues working fast –food jobs across Seattle, the answer is, 'Nothing.' Our backs are firmly against the wall. By joining with my coworkers, I can envision a future in which I earn enough to live, eat and go back to school.

We have been pushed to the edge, and now we are taking a stand, and I could not be more excited, or more hopeful.

The strike follows similar actions in New York, Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Louis and Detroit. 

Employees from restaurant chains including McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell, Subway, Arby’s, Chipotle and more are expected to participate in the demonstration.

The Truth about The Social Contract

The Truth about The Social Contract
May 30, 2013 | StormCloudsGathering

The social contract is a concept that liberals and conservatives interpret very differently, but In this video we're probably going to make both sides angry.